


Only Two People Worth Loving

by NervousAsexual



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/F, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, The Dragonborn is Awkward, khajit dragonborn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-21
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-12-02 04:22:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11501673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NervousAsexual/pseuds/NervousAsexual
Summary: Avrusa Sarethi was just a Dunmer refugee in an increasingly nationalistic land. She wasn't going to take the world by storm. So she was content, for the most part, just to tend her nirnroot and look after her sister.And then she met the dragonborn.





	1. Chapter 1

She had never been given to fantasies of grandeur and importance. She and Aduri were different that way. She didn't expect the heavens to part and proclaim her life meaningful, or even especially useful. She would never paint a masterwork or sail a ship or rescue a princess. She would stay at home in the Rift and grow her nirnroot, and that was more than she had any right to desire.

If only Avrusa could have guess what was in store the morning she opened up her eyes and found a scruffy hooded Khajit standing over her bed. The Khajit's arms were full of potatoes and gourds, and a long sharp dagger hung by her side.

"I picked these," the Khajit said.

"Yes," she said, for that much was obvious.

Neither of them spoke. The Khajit's tail twitched nervously.

"I can pay you for harvesting them," Avrusa said, keeping one eye on that dagger. She didn't have much experience trying to read the expressions of Khajit, but she thought she looked relieved as she deposited them onto Avrusa's blanket.

"Never seen nirnroot growing inland before," the Khajit said.

"I'm the only person alive who can cultivate it. Learned it from the best, from a master alchemist. Do you know Sinderion?"

"Impressive," said the Khajit. She glanced back at the door. "My name is Julital."

"Avrusa. Sarethi. Pleasure to meet you."

Julital pocketed the septims Avrusa handed to her and headed for the door.

"Wait!" Avrusa called after her.

To her surprise, Julital did.

"I'm not just paying for help with the harvest. You... you must travel a lot?"

The Khajit inclined her head.

"Well, perhaps in your travels you run across some plants. Jazbay grapes? I use them to grow the nirnroot. If you brought me some... say, twenty of them..."

"I'll keep an eye out," Julital said. Her lips curled in a smile, and she bowed herself out.

Avrusa hurried to the door, caught it before it closed all the way, but there was no one in her front garden. She rubbed at her eyes, trying to see where Julital had gone, but there was no one there. Maybe I dreamed it, she thought, but when she looked back into the house her bed was in fact piled high with gourds and potatoes.

How strange, she thought, but the sun was only getting higher and there was still wheat to gather and fields to till.

She was hiking up her skirts, getting ready to pull weeds when a guard staggered up the road. He collapsed against the fenceposts, gasping for breath.

"Where did she go?" he demanded, pressing a hand against his side.

"Where did who go? Speak up now, I'm a very busy woman."

"The dragonborn!" he shouted before he was tripped up by a wheezing cough. "Khajit in a hood," he gasped, pounding at his chest. "Leopard spots, scar over one eye. She shouted Maven Black-Briar into the canal and broke into the Pawned Prawn."

Maven Black-Briar? The puppeteer woman who owned almost everything in the Rift? Good for her! Maybe finding a slaughterfish in her trousers would help her grow a conscience.

"Haven't seen her." She rooted around in the furrow and found a little mountain flower trying to grow. Stubborn little know-nothing.

"Are you sure?"

"I would remember an over-sized cat breathing fire at my home."

The guard glared at her and staggered on, still winded. Avrusa returned to her plants.

The dragonborn. My, my.


	2. Chapter 2

She didn't expect to see Julital again. If nothing else she doubted that the dragonborn, of all people, would need what little money Avrusa could afford to pay out.

So instead of getting her hopes up, she filed Julital away with her dreams of opening up a shop and returning to Mournhold. Lovely thoughts, but only thoughts.

She tended her crops. She argued with Aduri. She lived her life in her own quiet little way.

And then one day she looked up from her work and found Julital standing over her. The dangerous-looking dagger still hung at her side. Her arms were full of jazbay grapes.

"I picked these," Julital said.

"So I see."

The dragonborn's tail twitched. She looked a little less ill at ease than before. There was possibly a new scar on her chin.

"Um, let's see. Would two hundred septims be enough?"

Julital nodded.

"Alright. Why don't you step inside and we'll find you some coin?"

She brushed the dirt from her clothes and left the garden the way it was. Her hair was a bit slimy with sweat; she rubbed a hand over it and that seemed to help. Julital moved so silently she had to keep checking behind her to make sure she was there.

"Where did you find them all?" she asked, gesturing for Julital to leave the grapes in the barrel beside the door. "I've never seen more than two or three plants in a spot."

"Here and there." Julital said. The grapes rolled from her arms and into the barrel. "I don't know. Some of them came from my garden in Riften."

"Oh, you garden too?" She pictured the Khajit crouching behind a row of leeks, tail twitching impatiently, and stabbing any weed that dared show its face.

"No. The garden came with my house. The housecarl tends it."

"Oh." She nearly let the door swing shut in Julital's face and just caught it in time. "A housecarl. You must be very important in Riften."

Julital stood in the doorway, running her eyes over seemingly every nook and cranny. "I'm Riften's thane."

A dragonborn and a thane, and a Khajit to boot. Would wonders never cease?

"And the thane of Whiterun. Possibly the thane in Dawnstar. I'm not sure, I haven't been back there in a while."

To become thane you had to be a personal friend of hte jarl, didn't you? Avrusa spotted one of Aduri's dirty tunics lying crumpled on the floor and swiftly kicked it under a bed. Somehow the idea of Julital rubbing elbows with Jarl Laila was even more intimidating than the idea of her breathing fire or ice or whatever it was a dragonborn did.

"I was also at Helgen when the dragon attacked. And Whiterun. Fought the dragon there, too."

"Was it the same dragon?"

Julital blinked. "I'm... not sure."

She found fifty septims in her dresser, another twenty in a purse on the table, and a hundred in her secret hiding spot beside the fireplace. There wasn't a penny more to be had. Aduri, she thought bitterly, had some explaining to do.

"Sorry," she said cautiously, handing over the purse. "I'm a little short on coin at the moment."

"Okay." Julital pocketed the purse and said no more. She just stood there, unmoving.

"If you come back in a week or so I can get you the rest of it."

"That's fine."

Outside one of the goats brayed. Silence fell  again.

"Well," Julital said at last. "I'll see you... later?"

Avrusa nodded. "I hope so."

And inwardly she groaned. She was getting soft.

Julital didn't seem to notice. She ducked her head and was gone.

The prospect of seeing Julital again brought up excitement, she noted, but, oddly, not much fear.


End file.
